Hello!
I would offer an opinion;
The
academic part of your journey may begin with a
free body diagram, which assigns
forces to all members of the device.
Mass and Inertia follows the weight of the part,
along with speed, acceleration, etc. This direction can be found from
REA's,
problem solvers series. Titles such as,
Statics, Physics, Strength of material, and
Machine Design will help define the parameters that you may be looking for, and
give insight and examples of similar devices. To use a software to help, I would recommend
using autodesk Inventor to model the members, which may bring answers to light.
Good Luck!